Some months back, I was contacted by Bill Streeter, director of the Delaware Valley Raptor Center. He told me that he rescued a turkey vulture from the area near Forest City, PA. The vulture was found on the ground, emaciated, but not injured. Lab tests were negative for lead or any other contaminant. The one very evident characteristic with this particular vulture was that its plumage was pure white.

Turkey vultures are dark, off-black birds with slightly lighter colored flight feathers on the wings; this appeared to be a leucistic or albino individual. Leucism is when an animal displays partial loss of pigmentation, i.e., a leucistic adult bald eagle may show white or mottled plumage but would still have a yellow bill and eyes indicating that it is an adult.

Albinism in an animal is when an animal had no pigmentation whatsoever; it will have white plumage or fur and have pink or pale blue irises. Albinistic animals frequently suffer vision problems, they become an easy target for predators since they’re easier to see, and, depending on the species and habitat, can suffer from excessive UV exposure due to sunlight and the lack of melanin in their skin. Albinistic individuals may also be shunned by their own species, another possible explanatory factor for our turkey vulture’s emaciated state when found.

The vulture at the Raptor Center is indicative of an albino; it has no coloration of its legs or bill, and the red tint of the head may just be normal skin color without melanin. When flying in its enclosure, it was missing marks (overshooting perches, etc.), and this may indicate vision impairment. For this reason, this vulture may not be releasable back into the wild, and the staff will find permanent placement for this bird. As of now, it is eating well and is up to normal weight.